World War II

Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany

The year 1932 had seen Hitler’s meteoric rise to prominence in Germany, spurred largely by the German people’s frustration with dismal economic conditions and the still-festering wounds

Mar 3, 1935

Undo of Treaty of Versailles

World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations.

Oct 6, 1936

Axis Powers

The three principles partners in the Axis alliance were Germany, Italy, and Japan. these three countries recognized German domination over most of continental Europe,

Oct 6, 1936

Italy invades Ethopia

Mussolini followed the policy of following all acquires when he invaded Ethiopia the African country situated on the home of Africa The aim of invading Ethiopia was to boost Italian national prestige, which was wounded by Ethiopia's defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adowa in the nineteenth century (1896), which saved Ethiopia from Italian colonization..

Mar 13, 1938

Germany Annexes Austria

March 13 the Anschluss was proclaimed. Austria existed as a federal state of Germany until the end of World War II, when the Allied powers declared the Anschluss void and reestablished an independent Austria. Schuschnigg, who had been imprisoned soon after resigning, was released in 1945

Sep 29, 1938

Munich Agreement

Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Eduardo Daladier, and the British prime minister Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieve ¨Peace in our Time¨

Nov 9, 1938

Kristallnacht

This event was also known as the night of Broken Glass, vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses and killed close to 100 people. Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933.

Mar 15, 1939

Germany breaks the Munich Agreement

Chamberlain made the biggest blunder in British history. Unasked he issued a war guaranteed to Poland, empowering a Polish dictatorship of colonels that had joined Hitler to drag the British Empire into war with Germany over a city.

Aug 23, 1939

Nazi Soviet Pact

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in which two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.

Sep 3, 1939

Poland, GB, France declare war on Germany

Britain and France declare war on Germany. Britain and France are at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago. At 1115 BST the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced the British deadline for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland had expired.

Sep 9, 1939

Germany invades Poland

The German invasion was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war what would become the ''Blitzkrieg'' strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early to destroy the enemy's air capacity.

Sep 17, 1939

Soviet Union invades Poland

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland.

Apr 1, 1940

Auschwitz

Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Apr 9, 1940

Germany Invades Denmark & Norway

German warships enter major Norweign ports, from Narvik to Oslo deploying thousands of German troops and occupying Norway. At the same time, German forces occupy Copenhagen, among other Danish cities.

Jun 22, 1940

Fall of France

French had built a defensive 280-mile long fortification, the Maginot Line, all along the Franco-German border as protection against a future German attack. The Battle of France began on 10 May 1940.

Jul 16, 1940

Operation Sea Lion

Operation Sea Lion was the name given by Hitler for the planned invasion of Great Britain in 1940. OSL was never carried out during the war as the Germans lost the Battle of Britain and it is now believed that Hitler was more interested in the forthcoming attack on Russia as opposed to invading Britain.

Sep 1, 1940

North African Campaign

This campaign last for three years, as axis and allied forces pushed each other back and forth across the desert. Libya had been an Italian colony for several decades, and British forces had been in neighboring Egypt since 1882.

Sep 17, 1940

Britain defeats Germany

. By the summer of 1940, the Führer stood at the pinnacle of world power – feared by most, admired by many, and absolutely worshiped by his own people. Upon his return to Berlin after his conquest of France, he enjoyed an outpouring of popular delirium unprecedented in German history.

May 10, 1941

Battle of Britain ends

The Avro Lancaster was a British four engined second world war night bomber. October 31, 1940 is generally considered the end of The Battle of Britain, after the RAF caused considerable damage to the Luftwaffe.

Jun 22, 1941

Operation Barbarossa

Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory

Dec 7, 1941

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory,

Jun 7, 1942

Battle of Midway

Turning point in the pacific war, where the allies decimated the Japanese fleet at Midway, an island lying northwest of Hawaii and the allies took the offensive in he pacific and began to move closer to Japan.

Aug 7, 1942

Battle of Guadalcanal

Battle of Guadalcanal was the first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies in the Pacific theater. With Japanese troops stationed in this section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. marines launched a surprise attack in August 1942 and took control of an air base under construction.

Jun 6, 1944

D Day

some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces indeed on five beaches along a 50 mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of Frances Normandy region.The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning.

May 7, 1945

Germany Surrenders

Germany officially surrendered to the Allies bringing an ed to the European conflict in World War II. General Alfred Jodl, representing the German High Command, signed the unconditional surrender of both east and west forces.

Aug 6, 1945

Hiroshima

American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.

Aug 9, 1945

Nagasaki

Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

Sep 2, 1945

Japan Surrenders

By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated.

Period: Sep 17, 1939 to Apr 9, 1940

Phony War

The Phoney War was an eight month period at the start of world war II during which there were no majority land operations on the Western Front

Period: Aug 23, 1942 to Feb 2, 1943

Battle of Stalingrad

The successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict.